Youkilis addresses agreement for coaches

Major League Baseball seemed to take the hit about this coaches flap all morning long, but in the overall blame pie, was the Players' Association mostly at fault for originally eliminating the coaches from the pool of receipts for the Japan trip?

A major league official certainly thought so and was miffed at MLB being portrayed as the bad guy.

Boston's player rep Kevin Youkilis, who it a three-run homer to provide all of Boston's runs through six innings today, took the high road and said no blame should be assigned for the misunderstanding.

"The conference call (in October) was tough in and of itself," Youkilis said. "There were six or seven players on it. In the business world conference calls are not the easiest way. You hear voices and everyone's talking. We definitely knew what we were told. There was added stuff just to get us to go over there. I can't blame one person for the misunderstanding. I think the next time we know going forward that when you have these conference calls, you have to get it in writing. It's the easiest way to do stuff. One thing that will be addressed at players' union meetings now is that you have to put it in writing and be on the same page. We found out today. It's a learning process, we're moving forward and we're going to have a lot of fun over there."

Youkilis said he didn't know the particulars of the pool of money the coaches money will now come from. It appears from sources that the coaches will earn a minimum of $40,000 but that it will likely be higher.

"It's all money from what happens in Japan," said Youkilis. "Now we have something separate which is going to be in a pool for something else. I can't tell you I'm 100 percent certain on all the details. But I know there's a number out there that will be paid to our coaches, staff and trainers."